"In the net neutrality vision of the world, broadband providers simply deliver packets as they are paid to do. When it was just a set of online services, Google happened to fall on the side of citizens and used to advocate against broadband companies controlling the pipes. Now that it’s an ISP itself, Google is becoming a net neutrality hypocrite." This is why trusting companies - any company - is simply a bad idea. Companies don't care about you, and those that say they do are liars.

They've been evil for a long time now. In the most populous country in the world (China) they promote censorship. Here in the US they help the most evil government on these shores since 1776 (and maybe ever) spy on it's citizens. They fake YouTube metrics constantly to misinform the public. They conveniently drop competitor mail when it suits them, they track every user's data globally as part of their business model. I mean, they're not Apple or Microsoft, but they're getting closer and closer every day. I for one fully welcome our new replicant overlords. Good day Google, and good riddance.

So here's the thing. I do not live in the US. I live in the EU. I've a fiber connection that is dirt cheap and very fast 5MB down and 2MB (yes those are megabytes) for less than 10$/month. That being said, the terms of my contract also prohibit me from running my own servers. They do not enforce it and people just run their own Counterstrike and Minecraft servers, and expose their CCTV DVRs to the net, etc... Since this the country's biggest ISP they also do not take a hit as probably most of the traffic does not even leave their network.

All of the terms I've seen in the article are also in my contract. Granted my ISP does not champion "net neutrality"

I would worry when Google will start throttling Netflix and Amazon movies but not because some dude can't run a service over the cheapo' fiber connection.

Things aren't really being blown out of proportion. Google, themselves, have been lobbying for net-neutrality, they've been trying to pose themselves as the champion for end-user rights, they've been appealing to the geek audiences and they've very literally touted these kinds of measures as something inherently sinister...and then they go a full 180 when they themselves become an ISP. That's the whole and full crux here -- they're fucking hypocrites.

If you want to run a business over a cheapo' residential line they are just sending the message that's not acceptable.

Then they should formulate their ToS like that. As it stands they're talking about servers of any kind -- including those personal ones. They may not do anything about personal servers, but they're not actually saying that they won't -- they're leaving the door right open.

We have an ISP here in Finland -- Sonera, that is -- that has exactly the same kind of clause and they've blocked all the most-common ports off completely, including (but not limited to) 22, 80 and 443 and they start to throttle all kinds of traffic if they notice the traffic not originating from some big-name service or website. I could definitely see Google going for the same thing eventually once they've established themselves properly as an ISP.

"Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged. "

Not clear enough; servers like e.g. your own cloud-server, SSH-server, e-mail server, web-server, music-streaming server and the likes are clearly not about multiplayer gaming, not video-conferencing, not exactly home security and they do not include "server capabilities" as a part of providing other functionality -- they are servers and that's their primary role --, so are such servers allowed or disallowed? Who knows, they're not saying! All they're saying is that they're reserving themselves the ability to shut down all such activities and until they prove me wrong I'll assume the worst.

Good luck finding an ISP that will let you run, by default, an email server. Mine requires me to fill out a form on their website.

My ISP allows that, and much more. There are no restriction on the kinds of servers or services you can run from your own home - other than the usual congestion disclaimers (e.g. you're not allowed to use thousands of GB per day, since that would harm other customers).

America might have retarded, monopolistic ISPs and a 3rd world internet infrastructure, but not every country does.

Using the bandwidth you're paying for is not reasonable use? If you don't want people to use a lot of bandwidth then don't sell them a lot of bandwidth. It's as simple as that.
Really, it's none of the ISPs goddamn business WHAT it is used for. You've paid for a certain amount of bandwidth and that's it. Running a game server, email server, web server, a slingbox or whatever: NONE of their business.
When you buy a mobile phone there's no restrictions what you can use it for and there's no rational reason why there should be this kind of restrictions on bandwidth (no, greed is not a rational reason).

Well, what's unreasonable about your example is not the server use itself, but the large amount of data which was sent and received. So if ISPs are not ready for that kind of traffic, they should ban exactly that, just like every cellphone data plan under the sun does.

Those "something horrible will happen to you if you consume more than X MB a month" contract clauses, as unpopular as they may be, are perfectly compatible with net neutrality. It's just the ISPs claiming (whether legitimately or not) that they cannot provide good service if users start eating more data every month.

However, as someone else said, your average home server generates less web traffic than someone watching Youtube. So if server use is unreasonable, should Google ban Youtube use from their internet connections too ?

Our Terms of Service prohibit running a server. However, use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged" (emphasis added).

Running a server for personal use should be allowed. Running a website with thousands of users is a different story.

Why is it a different story? A web server consumes much less bandwidth than a normal consumer watching netflix. This is just about Google trying create a business tier service by introducing arbitrary and technically nonsensical limitations on the common tier.

Wtf Google? I mean, I always knew that "Don't do evil" thing was just the usual corporate claptrap (and anyone who believes it means anything at all is a fool) but this...really?
Net neutrality is for others but not you?
Hopefully you will get your ass handed to you in a most painful and financially damaging manner.

Hopefully you will get your ass handed to you in a most painful and financially damaging manner.

I'm afraid they've got too much momentum and they're too big for that. No government is going to want to seriously damage an entity that feeds it with clean, bean dollar bills, and ordinary citizens just won't care -- apathy is too easy. They may have alienated geek users with this move, but geek users make for a small minority, not enough to cause them any real harm.

TFA is not about net neutrality. The biggest problem with this issue is that even technical people don't understand it. An ISP has always been able to limit usage in the way described in the article. ISPs offer different tiers of service. If you're paying for home use and turn around and use it for business it's perfectly reasonable for an ISP to enforce terms of service. The net neutrality debate is less about ISPs and much more about the internet backbone and those who control it. Do we treat all traffic the same as it moves from one network to another? That’s the core issue and it has nothing to do with an ISP terms of service with its users.